New Smyrna's Diamante Mitchell makes the grade for Barracudas

Wednesday

Sep 12, 2012 at 2:55 PM

New Smyrna Beach's Diamante Mitchell is making the most out of his senior season for the Barracudas.

SEAN KERNANSTAFF WRITER

NEW SMYRNA BEACH – For the first time in his life, Diamante Mitchell is making the grade on and off the field for the New Smyrna Beach Barracudas.The senior running back and cornerback, who admits to struggling with eligibility issues in the past, has gotten his academics in order and, for the first time, is playing varsity football.“He's been trying to get on the team for a while,” NSB wide receiver James Clark said Tuesday during a water break at practice. “We did our job trying to get him out there on the field. Now, it's all on him to stay there. With this team, you have to stay on your grades. That's something Coach (Lance) Jenkins expects from us.”Mitchell -- a 5-foot-9 and 180-pound two-way player who has hardly left the field in the Barracudas' first two games -- is looking forward to playing his first home opener Friday when New Smyrna Beach hosts Flagler Palm Coast. The battle between 2-0 teams is scheduled to kick off at 7 p.m. at New Smyrna Beach Sports Complex Stadium.Mitchell, a polite, yes-sir, no-sir 18-year-old, has taken responsibility for not being eligible in the past.“I made bad choices,” Mitchell said bluntly as he cradled a football during an interview. “I didn't listen to my father, didn't listen to my grandparents, my coaches. But now I'm focused, and I'm lovin' it. I'm back with my teammates. They're encouraging me. My coaches are pushing me, and I'm not going to stop.”Mitchell is an all-around athlete who plans to play shooting guard for New Smyrna Beach's basketball team with his twin brother, Dez, and roam the outfield for a Barracudas baseball team that reached the Class 7A Final Four last season. Mitchell has channeled that same athletic energy into his classes of late. And an odd thing has happened: He likes his classes.“Science, government, English – I'm loving English,” Mitchell responded when asked about his favorite classes. “I'm just trying to keep everything straight – school and football – so I can get to college.”Mitchell said his GPA is around 2.8, but he's not satisfied with just being eligible to play high school sports. He wants to go to college, and he wants to get a football scholarship. He realizes the higher he can get his GPA, the better off he'll be with options for college football.Mitchell's epiphany came during the summer.“I thought, ‘This is my last year of high school,' and I just decided I needed to push forward and try to help the team,” he said. “It was time to grow up. I was going to get everything straight.“I was stubborn for a while. I'd see the guys out here and think, ‘Man, I'm not having any fun.' Here I was telling these guys to ‘Do this or do that.' But here I wasn't doing the same. I decided I was going to do everything I needed to do to play football this year, and here I am.”Mitchell said he realized it wasn't cool being on the sidelines watching his friends play sports. He said he needed to be involved in sports to help him in the classroom because in the past “once I stopped playing I just lost focus.” The teenager, who grew up around New Smyrna Beach, had even tried another school in Avon Park, where he had moved to live with his father, Travis LaFlam. But Mitchell came to realize he'd have a better chance to succeed if he was surrounded by longtime friends who already were making the grade. Friends like teammates Clark, D'Cota Dixon, Dexter Dixon and Vince Thomas.“They're all my family,” Mitchell said. “We grew up with each other from Day 1.”So he moved back to Edgewater, where he lives with his grandparents, Vernal and Fredia Mitchell. He also returned to a coaching staff with running backs/receivers coach Dwayne Wood, who Mitchell described as “like a second father” and Jenkins, a tell-it-like-it-is head coach.“We just basically told him that he has nine months left (in high school) and whatever he does in the next nine months is going to determine the rest of his life, so it's up to him,” Jenkins said. “If he works hard the next nine months and he gets in college, then works hard the next five years, then the next 50 (years) are going to be easy.“Or, he can mess around for nine months and the next 50 years are going to be really hard for him. That's how we put it to him.”Mitchell has been superb in a 'Cudas uniform this season. He has eight receptions for 87 yards and 11 rushes for 90 yards, averages of 10.9 yards per catch and 8.2 yards per run. Defensively, he has 11 tackles and an interception that he returned 27 yards for a touchdown in NSB's 41-35 overtime win at DeLand on Friday.“He's a real good football player,” Jenkins said. “He's got a chance to play at the next level. He's really been a spark for us offensively and defensively. It's just really up to him whether he wants to get it done in the classroom.”And right now, Diamante Mitchell apparently is studying more than his playbook.